Negar Morovatdar

INTRODUCTION: Current evidence on the association between COVID-19 and dementia is sparse. This study aims to investigate the associations between COVID-19 caseload and the burden of dementia. METHODS: We gathered data regarding burden of dementia (disability-adjusted life years [DALYs] per 100,000), life expectancy, and healthy life expectancy (HALE) from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study. We obtained COVID-19 data from Our World in Data database. We analyzed the association of COVID-19 cases and deaths with the burden of dementia using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. RESULTS: Globally, we found significant positive (p < .001) correlations between life expectancy (r = 0.60), HALE (r = 0.58), and dementia DALYs (r = 0.46) with COVID-19 caseloads. Likewise, we found similar correlations between life expectancy (r = 0.60), HALE (r = 0.58) and dementia DALYs (r = 0.54) with COVID-19 mortality. CONCLUSION: Health policymakers should clarify a targeted model of disease surveillance in order to reduce the dual burden of dementia and COVID-19.

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to determine the mean age at which coronary artery disease (CAD) hase decreased in recent years in Iran. This systematic review and meta‐analysis compares the prevalence of different risk factors of premature CAD (PCAD) in patients vs healthy individuals. Methods Medline, Web of Science, Embase and Scientific Information Database were searched for studies about PCAD risk factors in Iran until 28 October 2017. Observational studies of Iranians, comparing risk factors between patients with PCAD and age‐ and sex‐matched healthy subjects, were included. Fixed‐effects and random‐effects model were used for pooling data. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI and mean difference were used for effect size estimation among studies. Results Twelve studies were eligible for meta‐analysis. Diabetes mellitus (OR: 2.4, 95% CI: 1.9‐3.03; P = 0.0001, I 2 = 25.5%; P = 0.2), family history of CAD (OR: 2.09, 95% CI: 1.22‐3.6; P = 0.007, I 2 = 86%; P = 0.0001), dyslipidaemia (OR: 2.05, 95% CI: 1.15‐3.64; P = 0.01, I 2 = 54%; P = 0.08), smoking (OR: 1.65, 95% CI: 1.11‐2.46; P = 0.01, I 2 = 77.2%; P = 0.000) and hypertension (OR: 1.35, 95% CI: 1.21 to‐1.50; P &lt; 0.001, I 2 = 31%, P = 0.1) associated with PCAD. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that patients with PCAD had significantly lower levels of high‐density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and significantly higher levels of triglycerides compared to healthy subjects (MD: −2.56, 95% CI: −3.54 to −1.58, P &lt; 0.001, I 2 = 42%, P = 0.01 and MD: 21.17, 95% CI: 14.73‐27.62, P &lt; 0.001, I 2 = 80.12%, P &lt; 0.001, respectively). It should be noted that although high levels of heterogeneity in LDL and HDL values among the studies were observed, when dyslipidaemia was studied as a binary variable, no significant heterogeneity among studies was observed. Conclusion Diabetes mellitus, family history of CAD, dyslipidaemia, smoking, and hypertension were significantly and positively associated with CAD in young adults compared to healthy age‐ and sex‐matched population in Iran.

The aim of this study is to determine the frequency of various methods of suicide in Eastern Mediterranean Region by a systematic review and meta-analysis. All published articles in international database were systematically searched before September 2011. In order to analyze the data we used STATA, ver.10 software. We reported proportions with standard errors (SE) for single studies and pooled estimates for proportions of different suicidal methods based on random model meta-analysis. We included 19 articles in the final analysis. The pooled proportion of hanging, self-immolation, and poisoning were 39.7% (95% CI: 26.8%-52.7%), 17.4% (95% CI: 10%-24.8%), and 20.3% (95% CI: 14%-26.5%) respectively. Self-immolation and poisoning were gender dependent and hanging was country dependent in the meta-regression method. We found out that the 3 most common methods of suicide in EMR are hanging, poisoning, and self-immolation. These methods are estimated to account for 77.4% of all methods of suicide in EMR.